MARCH/APRIL 2011 VOLUME 64, NUMBER 2 CONTENTS features 18 Reading the Yellow River Preserved by centuries of floodborne silt, a rural landscape offers a new look at the Han Dynasty BY LAUREN HILGERS 24 The Adriatic’s Uncharted Past Once closed to exploration, the waters off the Albanian coast begin to give up their secrets BY MARA HVISTENDAHL 29 Pieces of History On one of Britain’s most famous battlefields, early gun fragments hint at a new style of warfare BY JARRETT A. LOBELL 32 Interview: Werner Herzog on the Birth of Art The famed director of more than 60 films speaks with ARCHAEOLOGY about Chauvet Cave 40 The New Upper Class Recent digs at Copper Age sites across Europe are overturning long-held beliefs about the continent’s earliest cultures BY ANDREW CURRY 40 Gold artifacts in a burial from Varna, Bulgaria, provide evidence of the emergence of a class system in Copper Age Europe. Cover: Amphorae mark the site of a 4th-century A.D. shipwreck off the coast of Albania. 1